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The Israelites Oppressed
These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
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Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
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Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
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but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
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Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.
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“Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.
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But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
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“When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”
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The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
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The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
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So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
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And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
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Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
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The Birth of Moses
Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman,
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But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
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She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
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Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
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Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.
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“And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”
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During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
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God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
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So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
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Moses and the Burning Bush
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
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There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.
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So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
